ARTICLES ABOUT SCHOOL LIBRARIAN BY DATE - PAGE 3

Jean Connolly Herlihy, a retired Towson High School librarian, died of cancer Wednesday at a Danvers, Mass., assisted-living home where she had lived for the past two years. The former Homeland resident was 82. Born Jean Connolly in Baltimore and raised on Walbrook Avenue, she was a 1939 graduate of Forest Park High School and earned a degree from the old Mount St. Agnes College in Mount Washington. She worked as an administrative assistant at the Venable, Baetjer & Howard law firm in downtown Baltimore.

Jacqueline Z. Maskell, a retired Calvert School librarian and city school library volunteer, died of cancer Sunday at Brightwood Center assisted-living facility in Lutherville. The former Timonium resident was 72. Born Jacqueline Zeis in East St. Louis, Mo., and raised in Moultrie, Ga., she earned her bachelor's degree in English in 1952 from Goucher College. That year she married Thomas P. Maskell Jr., whom she had meet in 1948 when he was a lifeguard at the Stoneleigh community pool.

Mary E. Ezzo, a retired Baltimore County public school librarian, died Wednesday of complications caused by dementia at North Oaks Retirement Community in Pikesville. The former Sudbrook Park resident was 90. Born Mary E. Ross in Lancaster, Pa., she graduated from Millersville State Teachers College in Pennsylvania in 1934. She was married for 47 years to Stephen A. Ezzo, who died in 1986. She moved to Baltimore with her husband in the late 1930s. She worked at the Glenn L. Martin Co. as an engineering librarian until 1956, when she became a secondary school librarian in Baltimore County.

Carol Hackett Pieper, a retired librarian at St. Paul's School for Boys, died Friday of complications from Parkinson's disease at Carroll County General Hospital. The former Ruxton resident was 79. Born Carol Frances Hackett in Stamford, Conn., she was a 1940 gradate of the Greenwood School on North Charles Street and earned an associate's degree from Pine Manor Junior College in Wellesley, Mass., and bachelor's and master's degrees in library science from what is now Towson University.

Betty Fischler Sagi, a retired Baltimore County elementary school librarian, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, Saturday at Oak Crest Village retirement community in Parkville. She was 77. She was born Betty Fischler in Bay City, Mich. Her parents moved often as her father, a radio engineer, sought work. She lived in Wellsboro, Pa., before moving to Kenmore, N.Y., where she graduated from high school in 1943. Mrs. Sagi earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1947 from the University of Buffalo, now the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Frances Parker Matthai, retired Bryn Mawr School librarian and former state tennis champion, died of a stroke Sunday at Brightwood Center Genesis Eldercare in Lutherville. She was 82. Born and raised in Owings Mills, Miss Matthai was the granddaughter of Horatio Parker, composer and professor of music at the Yale University School of Music. She was the sister of the late H. Parker Matthai, a Baltimore architect who assisted in the design of the city's World Trade Center. Miss Matthai was a 1939 graduate of Garrison Forest School, and earned her bachelor's degree in 1943 from Bryn Mawr College.

HAVING READ this month's selection of the Wellwood International Elementary School Book Club, I expected 9- and 10-year-olds to be lost in the book's allegory and symbolism, to be turned off by its adult themes. I was wrong. When I visited the Pikesville public school last week, this eager bunch of fourth- and fifth-graders taught me more about Holes, the novel by Louis Sacher, than I would have dreamed of teaching them. They took me by the hand and led me through the darkly humorous and redemptive tale of Stanley Yelnats (note the palindrome)

For children at Magnolia Elementary School in Harford County, a visit with Joanne Slagle is like a session with a reading coach, curriculum expert and testing tutor, disguised as a trip to the school library. In less than an hour, the veteran librarian can turn a read-aloud activity into an exercise in critical thinking. She'll link the story with the children's classroom goals and perhaps give them a chance to practice skills that could prove useful on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests.

John Jackson Platter, 69, security agency official John Jackson Platter, a retired National Security Agency official, died Saturday of pancreatic cancer at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. He was 69 and had lived in Simpsonville since 1967. Mr. Platter, who served in the Air Force in the 1950s, retired in 1987 as assistant deputy director for operations at NSA at Fort Meade. He had assignments in the Philippines, Cyprus, Korea, Germany and Thailand for NSA and the Air Force.

Mary Katherine Duginske, a former Baltimore public school librarian and captivating professional storyteller, died Monday of cancer at Stella Maris Hospice at Mercy Medical Center. She was 49 and lived in Mount Vernon. Until she was forced to retire last year because of failing health, Ms. Duginske had been librarian and media specialist for two years at Harbor City Learning Center on West Saratoga Street, an alternative high school for dropouts. "Her motto was, `If there is anything you want to know, the library is the place to go,'" said Florence S. Blum, an instructional associate at the school.